Boxee aims to beat Apple and Roku in the TV box game

Boxee, the company that once made headlines as a major contender in the set-top box wars, is bringing its newly launched Boxee TV device to Walmart, starting tomorrow. This is a big move for Boxee, as it will be granted a prominent spot in Walmart's brick and mortar stores, and will be up against competitors like the Apple TV and Roku's line of devices.

Apple TV offers premium content like Major League Baseball and the iTunes store, and Roku offers over 500 paid and free streaming channels, but the Boxee TV has a feature found on neither: the ability to actually tune in to local television. Walmart will set up displays in its stores showcasing the Boxee TV's access to free broadcast channels, such as ABC, CBS, NBC, and the CW, as well as its capacity to stream Internet content from Netflix, YouTube, and Vimeo. The device can also hook into unencrypted basic cable, removing the need for a separate digital cable box. "We don't believe the future of the TV is going to be a future filled with apps," Avner Ronen, Boxee's chief executive officer, told Bloomberg. "When you turn on the TV...you just want to watch something."

Boxee TV also sports two tuners, letting it simultaneously display one channel while recording another. The device then uploads those recordings to the cloud, where users receive unlimited storage for $15 a month, as well as the ability to view their recorded shows on any Internet connected device. However, over-the-air DVR service is limited to certain areas, including Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. More cities are planned for 2013.

The set-top box also comes equipped with a cheaper processor than its predecessor, the Boxee Box. It swaps out the previously used Intel chips for a Broadcom SoC, and includes a Linux-based operating system, both of which bring down the price. It won't be able to play as many types of video files as the discontinued Boxee Box, but the device is still a good value for the less tech-savvy who likely aren't concerned with exhaustive codec and container support.

Even though Roku boxes and Apple TVs are also available at Walmart, Boxee will have a leg-up with its over-the-air recording capabilities. It could face some problems, however, from content owners who are already reluctant to support streaming models and may find issues with Boxee's offerings. Additionally, Boxee's ability to connect directly to unencrypted cable is exactly the kind of thing that could be curtailed by a recent FCC ruling allowing the encryption of basic offerings. Boxee seems unconcerned about the ruling, though, and is confident that its products will be unaffected.

Are there statistics out there on adoption rates/trends? I just have a hard time believing how much time and effort is being invested into developing these services. For as much as we read about them, I have not seen them catch on in my area. Maybe its a midwest thing?

Since TV went digital, I lost all signal. I bought a digital antenna and so now I can get one channel. OTA local channels are nice to have when the weather is rough. So a $98 box that could hook into my internet cable and get the basic channels from there? I might be interested, especially if it goes on sale at a steep discount near the holidays.

That is, assuming I am reading the article correctly and it works without the $15/mo cloud storage fee?

EDIT: Reading the site link, the cable hookup for local channels only seems to work if you are already a cable subscriber... which seems kind of pointless?

I liked where Boxee was going before they totally revamped their business model. Now I'm glad I decided to drop $100 on an AppleTV rather than $300 on Boxee's previous model. My television gives me OTA, and my ATV gives me access to movies and TV stored on my computer, as well as to Netflix and the rest. Works for me.

I've look at a lot of options over the months and I'm guessing either a Tivo or an HTPC would be the only way to unify all the content sources out there? And with the latter the experience leaves something to be desired.

Normally when someone says a band or whomever has "sold out" I just assume they're some kid/hipster. But the way Boxee has gone from cool HTPC application to some sort of lackluster frankenbox... well.

I just recently received my Raspberry Pi, and booted it with the latest OpenElec.tv 2.0 image... and I have to say -- for a $50 solution ($35 for the Pi, and $15 for an SD Card and some USB cables) -- it does everything I need it to do - Read EVERY codec I can throw at it from my SMB/Windows shares - Read/Store all of the video metadata, thumbnails, cast lists and pictures, etc - from a shared SQL database - Share said metadata across all of the installs around the house (so I can pick up in another room where I left off) - Watch trailers from Apple - Stream Youtube and various other web services - Works with a barage of cheap IR Remotes off eBay - Remote control via iPad/iPhone/Android - 1080p output

There are also a couple of plugins so I can use BBC iPlayer, and Amazon Prime -- I haven't tried those yet, but I look forward to trying them.

I've look at a lot of options over the months and I'm guessing either a Tivo or an HTPC would be the only way to unify all the content sources out there? And with the latter the experience leaves something to be desired.

Depends on what kind of "commitment" whether that be financial or chronological, you are willing to make. I sunk around $1500 into my HTPC setup. It can do Blu-Ray, stream from my server, run Netflix or any other comparitive setup. It can also game at a very high level, over my projector or direct output to my LCD TV.

"We don't believe the future of the TV is going to be a future filled with apps," Avner Ronen, Boxee's chief executive officer, told Bloomberg. "When you turn on the TV...you just want to watch something."

I dunno about that. In my experience, the more people use Netflix and Hulu, the less impressed they become with live TV. Actually catching the first few minutes seems to be a boon for TV-watching..

What exactly is the subscription fee for? My TV gets OTA programming, my Roku and Xbox 360 give me Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video and dozens others, with no fee on the Roku, so why is this a good option?

What exactly is the subscription fee for? My TV gets OTA programming, my Roku and Xbox 360 give me Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video and dozens others, with no fee on the Roku, so why is this a good option?

The DVR option. Also some kind of unity instead of several boxes to do the primary task of channel content selector.

I bought the original Boxee Box because from my research it was the best local streamer (as well as some pretty decent third party content like Netflix and some others) I could find. It had the most container support and most codec support. Hell, I could even mount .ISO files over the network and play them on the Boxee Box.

But they can go fuck themselves royally as I will never purchase another product from them again. It's been nearly 8 months since they last pushed a firmware update for the Boxee Box. We're officially legacy products and any threads that are started on their official forums about firmware updates are either locked or ignored.

When I need to upgrade my current Boxee Box (which I might have to soon, the thing doesn't shut-down properly) I'll probably end up building myself an HTPC. I still love the functionality that the Boxee Box offers. But I haven't even owned it for a year yet and I've already been left out in the cold with many promised fixes never actually delivered.

So yeah, I hope this fails miserably. That might be a selfish to ask for, but I'd imagine a lot of other Boxee Box owners feel the same way.

I bought the original Boxee Box because from my research it was the best local streamer (as well as some pretty decent third party content like Netflix and some others) I could find. It had the most container support and most codec support. Hell, I could even mount .ISO files over the network and play them on the Boxee Box.

But they can go fuck themselves royally as I will never purchase another product from them again. It's been nearly 8 months since they last pushed a firmware update for the Boxee Box. We're officially legacy products and any threads that are started on their official forums about firmware updates are either locked or ignored.

When I need to upgrade my current Boxee Box (which I might have to soon, the thing doesn't shut-down properly) I'll probably end up building myself an HTPC. I still love the functionality that the Boxee Box offers. But I haven't even owned it for a year yet and I've already been left out in the cold with many promised fixes never actually delivered.

So yeah, I hope this fails miserably. That might be a selfish to ask for, but I'd imagine a lot of other Boxee Box owners feel the same way.

Yeah I heard a lot of the original Boxee owners got screwed over with no support.

I want a replacement for my jailbroken Apple TV that handles metadata-based library viewing from my NAS. Alas I don't think there's anything like that anywhere...

I use my old boxee box for that, which I plan on replacing with the OUYA + XBMC.

Solidstate89 wrote:

So yeah, I hope this fails miserably. That might be a selfish to ask for, but I'd imagine a lot of other Boxee Box owners feel the same way.

Although I've never used their support forums I pretty much feel the same. I like what it does but I find my boxee box to be too unreliable, basically randomly freezes. But we have a hard drive attached to it and load movies from that, and watch netflix from it. I like it and use it on a regular basis but I admit it could be better.

the uploading of local recordings to the cloud makes little/no sense if that is the only option. most recordings will be watched locally only once, so it would be a total waste of bandwidth. and to make upload file sizes reasonable, the quality must be totally gone after heavy compression.

is there a local storage option, like plugging in a USB stick or hard drive?

I've been running my own HTPC/DVR using MythTV (mythtv.org) for 7 years now, which lets me record all the OTA or ClearQAM broadcasts I want for free. There are dual tuners out there now, like the HDHR3 for $90 or less, or the HDHR Prime for $180 or less, that will let you record as many channels as you want if you buy multiple tuners. With the HDHR Prime, you can even record 3 encrypted cable channels simultaneously using a CableCARD (yes, you still have to pay for the cable service). I haven't hooked up the HDHR Prime yet because I don't have cable, but I got it for a great price so I figured I'll use it next year when I move and get cable. MythTV is an awesome piece of software, and being able to access my listings and recordings from my phone no matter where I am has been great for those times when I forget to set a recording. DirecTV has this feature now, but I've had it since I started using MythTV; I was able to add recordings from any computer, and once smartphones took off I was able to access MythTV via my phone's browser.

The cost of setting up an HTPC can be ridiculously low these days. The biggest expenses are probably the hard drives and the tuners. I have enough space to archive some of my shows, and even store some of my Blurays on the HDD so I don't have to fumble through my collection or watch 10 minutes of previews before I can watch the movie I've paid for. The newest version of MythTV even supports AirPlay if you have an iOS device, which has been nice to use with my iPad.

If you know your way around Linux, it's definitely worth looking into. And if you don't know your way around Linux, Mythbuntu can make things relatively easy for the newcomer.

TVs are just bad enough at flipping through the 5 different inputs to make you want to leave it at one input forever. It's a shame that the Secure (feel safer already) HDMI standard doesn't allow these bad boys to be in-line with your cable/dish receiver, so it can quickly cut in for short uses. Hold a button, say "Weather", and your TV pops over to the local radar view for a bit. Forward a Youtube link to user@boxee.net, and the box cuts in with the appropriate cat video.

I almost love the way Airplay works on the AppleTV box (the only reason for getting it), I would use it a lot more often if it didn't involve finding the proper TV remote, pressing INPUT SELECT five times, and EXIT. The dish receiver remote won't learn that, and any programmable solution to send 35 seconds of IR and pauses is not exactly ideal.

This sounded interesting until they got to the OTA recordings are uploaded to the cloud bit. I've always wondered why there where no good OTA DVR's at a reasonable price. The few that are available are pretty pricey. If I could record to a local server or a usb hard drive I'd consider it but 15$ a month to store it on the cloud doesn't interest me at all.

Since TV went digital, I lost all signal. I bought a digital antenna and so now I can get one channel. OTA local channels are nice to have when the weather is rough. So a $98 box that could hook into my internet cable and get the basic channels from there? I might be interested, especially if it goes on sale at a steep discount near the holidays.

That is, assuming I am reading the article correctly and it works without the $15/mo cloud storage fee?

EDIT: Reading the site link, the cable hookup for local channels only seems to work if you are already a cable subscriber... which seems kind of pointless?

You said you bought a "digital antenna" what sort of antenna did you buy? There is no difference between and analog or digital antenna, as RF is analog. Many manufacturers made a killing selling supposed digital antennas that were just crap with an amplifier and they work like crap too.

Depending on how far away from the transmitters you are will depend on the type of antenna you need, if you are in an apartment that makes it harder as well. If you are in a house and have access to your attic, place a good size, good quality antenna in your attic and connect it to your tv. If it has an ATSC tuner it should tune in just fine. I recommend Antennas Direct, as they have much better antennas than you will typically find in Best Buy etc. http://www.antennasdirect.com/store/attic.html

The DB4 or DB8 is a good choice for the attic, and should get most of the OTA channels, or you can mount it on a pole outside as well. If you are in an apartment you can use these inside, but they are a bit of an eyesore, and because you are inside it may or may not work. FCC specs for DTV signals were based on reception from an antenna pole mounted at 25 feet in the air. Thus rabbit ears and cheap indoor antennas tend not to work.

Boxee TV also sports two tuners, letting it simultaneously display one channel while recording another. The device then uploads those recordings to the cloud, where users receive unlimited storage for $15 a month, as well as the ability to view their recorded shows on any Internet connected device.

At 5GB/hour for 1080i OTA recordings how will this work? Does this box transcode the recordings before uploading it to their servers?

GPL Violators! They're using a locked bootloader with GPL3 software inside the original boxee box, for shame!

This sounded interesting until they got to the OTA recordings are uploaded to the cloud bit. I've always wondered why there where no good OTA DVR's at a reasonable price. The few that are available are pretty pricey. If I could record to a local server or a usb hard drive I'd consider it but 15$ a month to store it on the cloud doesn't interest me at all.

I have a hauppage dual tuner in a Win 7 box and use media center as a DVR, works for cable or OTA, if it's an HTPC it'd be the playback device, otherwise an Xbox 360 or other media center device can be used if the computer is elsewhere. Doesn't need to be a very powerful box to do it, and media center will play a lot of other media. It may not be cheap, but a lot of people already have a Win 7 pc and an xbox, if so, just add the tuner card and you are set.

I'm not understanding how the cloud DVR works unless they have agreements with the local affiliates to record a stream for the customers as there just isn't enough upstream bandwidth to support recording real time to the cloud in HD, even in MPEG 4.

I have been exploring the HTPC arena for a while. At the moment I have settled with Plex (XBMC fork for the Mac), since it does most things I want, though it isn't to say it is without fault.

I have explored Boxee and XBMC, and I wasn't convinced by either. Boxee, because I wasn't comfortable with the whole 'social' experience and XBMC, because while it may be more powerful than Plex it didn't feel as polished.

I also got an AppleTV (3rd gen) and found that the presentation quickly falls apart once you get past the main screen, since everything beyond the main screen is a simple text list. I was hoping that this would have been a step up from my Wii for watching Netflix, but it turns out the console actually provides the better experience.

I found that the AppleTV actually seems to work best as an AirPlay device, coupled with iPad. The iPad has the benefits of having access to apps and a good visual experience. Once you have found the app you want you simply stream to your AppleTV. When used in this way, the AppleTV gains some value an is an okay price, but it really needs to improve as standalone device (when an iDevice is not around).

Also, living outside of the USA, some of the touted features in some of these TV boxes lose value because they depend on agreements with the box manufacturers and the content providers. This means what may be a winning device in the USA, may not be in Canada, for example.

I just recently received my Raspberry Pi, and booted it with the latest OpenElec.tv 2.0 image... and I have to say -- for a $50 solution ($35 for the Pi, and $15 for an SD Card and some USB cables) -- it does everything I need it to do - Read EVERY codec I can throw at it from my SMB/Windows shares - Read/Store all of the video metadata, thumbnails, cast lists and pictures, etc - from a shared SQL database - Share said metadata across all of the installs around the house (so I can pick up in another room where I left off) - Watch trailers from Apple - Stream Youtube and various other web services - Works with a barage of cheap IR Remotes off eBay - Remote control via iPad/iPhone/Android - 1080p output

There are also a couple of plugins so I can use BBC iPlayer, and Amazon Prime -- I haven't tried those yet, but I look forward to trying them.

XBMC/OpenElec for the win!

We've been actually looking for something to do with a Raspberry Pi. Mind if I put this down as a possibility?

Since TV went digital, I lost all signal. I bought a digital antenna and so now I can get one channel. OTA local channels are nice to have when the weather is rough. So a $98 box that could hook into my internet cable and get the basic channels from there? I might be interested, especially if it goes on sale at a steep discount near the holidays.

That is, assuming I am reading the article correctly and it works without the $15/mo cloud storage fee?

EDIT: Reading the site link, the cable hookup for local channels only seems to work if you are already a cable subscriber... which seems kind of pointless?

I don't have one physically so I can't tell you yet how it's going to work, but I'm hoping that it works with an antenna as the digital OTA boxes do, as well as the EyeTV.

Still no interest. Yay you can record videos for shows that are available already through other outlets legally and you get to pay 15 a month to store them. For the money I ditched cable for simple setup:Roku 2 x'sOld core 2 duo laptopPlex (free) just for streaming content to roku from laptopPlayon to get access to other programming online on my roku via laptopWinegard ms-2000 antenna for attic, get channels like crazy over 30 in my area.Huluplus for missed showsNetflix for movies

Way better than the twc cable box IMHO and ota TV is way better quality at 720p vs the 1080p up scaling twc was doing. Entire setup gets me everything I want to watch. Admittedly I am not huge into sports. I can access all my stuff at home on any device too via pay on or plex.

After Boxee's poor support, missed promises, and ultimate abandonment of the Boxee Box, I'd just assume set a hundred bucks on fire before buying another Boxee branded product. Or donate it to Sandy relief where it might be productive.

I know everyone's pissed that Boxee is dropping support for the original Boxee Box after such a short time, but as an avid Boxee user, I still think it's the best thing out there, even with the occasional hanging. I use it primarily for local streaming, and it plays every single file I have. It has subtitle support, fast and accurate fast-forward/rewind, a great UI that automatically pulls down metadata and categorizes (most) everything properly, a simple to use remote (even if you can't see the keyboard in the dark), allows my 2 TB USB hard drive that's plugged into it to act as a NAS, allows you to adjust how the listings are displayed (alphabetical, newest, watched, etc.) and so much more. Even obscure specialized issues are handled well, like letting you adjust the audio delay if you encounter a file that has audio-video synchronization issues. Plus, I can finally easily watch all the great high quality youtube and vimeo content on a large HD screen that can also be controlled with a simple remote that doesn't require scrolling and clicking. And although most of the hundreds of apps on it are not of much interest to me, I use some of them occasionally too. (And they have Airplay support!)

Yes, they've dropped the ball on updates and it it does hang occasionally, but for local media streaming this is the best solution I know of, and I've tried a few options in the past (sorry, the media PC route is a clunky pain, and expensive).

I don't think I'm going to go for their new box (doesn't really offer me much that I'd be interested in), but I want the record to show that despite all the legitimate gripes people have against them, at least one person out there still loves his Boxee Box.

So yeah, I hope this fails miserably. That might be a selfish to ask for, but I'd imagine a lot of other Boxee Box owners feel the same way.

i'm with you. brought the boxee box to support a company that were saying the right things, and delivered the initial part of their promises in terms of the hardware, but have severely let the userbase down over the past 12 months.

no firmware updates, very little communication, and a product (boxee box) that is frankly dead in the water.

Another disappointed Boxee owner here. Buggy damn thing, no updates in more than six months. Haven't turned it on since buying the newest AppleTV with airplay. That combination does everything I need, and way more than Boxee.

And DVR of television channels? Lol, what is this 1998? Yeah Boxee, that's the future. That's exactly why I want to buy an internet-connected device, so I can watch TV. You guys are geniuses.

Florence Ion / Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.